The Amber Enchantress

by Denning, Troy

  “I don’t follow your logic,” said Magnus.

  “That’s because she isn’t using any!” snapped Wyan.

  Sadira pointed her palm at the head. A stream of brilliant crimson light shot from her hand, and Wyan screamed in anger. “Trollop! You blinded me!”

  “Quiet, or I’ll make it permanent,” she said. To Magnus, she explained, “Tithian is too much of a coward to defy the Dragon, so he doesn’t want me to return before he pays the levy. He sent these two out here with the story about Kled, hoping the names they’ve so carefully mentioned would convince me to go to the village instead of Tyr.”

  “That is the kind of plan Tithian would think of,” admitted Sacha. “But can you afford the chance that it’s really what he’s doing?”

  Magnus turned his head so that he was looking at Sadira with just one of his black eyes. “This trick seems too complicated,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to make a deal with the Dragon? In return for bypassing Tyr this year, tell him about Kled and the Book of Kings?”

  “That would make sense,” said Wyan, blinking his eyes as his temporary blindness passed. “But it’s not what Tithian did. He still intends to pay the levy. By telling the Dragon about Kled, he’s only trying to curry favor.”

  Sadira considered Magnus’s point for several moments, then looked at the two heads. “I might find your story easier to believe if I knew why you had suddenly decided to betray Tithian,” she said. “Surely you don’t expect me to believe you’ve developed a concern for the people of Tyr?”

  “Of course not,” sat Sacha. “Let’s just say that we have certain interests in common with the shadow people.”

  “Let’s not,” Sadira said. “I want to know more.”

  “If you must,” said Wyan, rolling his sallow eyes. “You know of the rebellion against Rajaat?” he asked. When Sadira nodded, he continued, “Not all of us revolted. For our dissension, Sacha and I were beheaded.”

  “You were champions?” Sadira gasped.

  “We still are,” answered Sacha, smiling proudly. “My full title is Sacha of Arala, Curse of the Kobolds.”

  “And I am Lord Wyan Bodach, Pixie Blight,” added the second head. “We are the last two loyal champions, and, as you can imagine, we would like nothing better than vengeance against the traitor Borys.”

  “If that’s true, then tell me why the others rebelled,” Sadira demanded.

  “If you insist,” Sacha growled. “The shadow people call the time of Rajaat’s rule the Green Age, and with good reason. All of Athas was as lush and fertile as the halfling forests you’ve visited.”

  “But the wars took a terrible toll on the land, for we champions were not the only great sorcerers in the fight,” Wyan broke in. “Every time there was a battle, hundreds of acres of land turned barren. By the time we were nearing victory—”

  “You mean, by the time you had annihilated most of the nonhuman races?” Sadira interrupted.

  The bitterness of her voice seemed lost on Wyan. “Precisely,” he said. “By the time we were preparing to wipe the last plague of impurity from the world, much of Athas had been reduced to a desert.”

  “So Rajaat declared that after our victory, he would be the only sorcerer,” Sacha continued. “The rest of us would have to forego the powers he had bestowed upon us. Wyan and I were more than happy to obey our master’s will, but the others renounced their vows and attacked.”

  “And that is how Athas came to be as it is,” said Wyan. “Now, will you go to Kled—or are you going to let Agis and Rikus meet the Dragon alone?”

  “Get it out of me!” Neeva’s pained voice rang out from a hut near the heart of Kled. It echoed up orange sandstone slopes to the top of the bluff, where, with the aid of a magical spell, Sadira and her companions were eavesdropping on everything that happened in the village. “Hurry, Caelum! This hurts!”

  “What’s wrong with her?” demanded Wyan, hovering next to Sadira.

  On the other side, Sacha asked, “Is someone torturing her?” His corpulent lips were twisted into a heinous grin.

  “Have you two never heard the sound of a woman bearing a child?” Magnus asked, shaking his head at the scene below. “She couldn’t have chosen a worse time.”

  Before Kled’s gate stood Borys, his slithering tail swishing languidly about, stirring up as much dust as a whirlwind. Despite the distance and the haze, Sadira could see that the Dragon was as tall as a full giant, with a body so gaunt that he would have made an elf seem stout. He had skin the color of iron, with a chitinous hide equal parts flesh and shell, and each of his willowy legs had two knees that bent in opposite directions. His arms were almost skeletal, ending in long-clawed fingers with swollen, knobby joints. Bory’s face was the most frightening aspect of his appearance, for it was no longer even remotely human. Located at the end of a serpentine neck, his head resembled that of a sharp-beaked bird, with a spiked crest of leathery skin and a pair of beady eyes so small they were hardly visible.

  Before the Dragon, atop the village’s modest gatehouse, were the tiny forms of two men that Sadira believed to be Rikus and Lyanius. The rest of Kled’s warriors stood along the walls, arrayed in their glistening armor. From what the companions could see, they were armed with steel axes or swords, spiked bucklers, and crossbows.

  On the sandstone slopes overlooking the approach to the gate, a hundred more figures stood near Borys’s flank. They were all dressed in the fashion of Tyr, with long dark robes easily discernible at a distance. The fact that none of them seemed to be carrying weapons suggested they were either mindbinders or sorcerers. By the silver streak that ran down the center of his long black hair, Sadira could identify Agis standing at the head of the company.

  Borys hardly seemed to notice any of this. In a sizzling voice as loud as thunder, he said, “Bring me the one known as Er’Stali, with his Book of Kemalok Kings, and choose half your number to die.”

  “It looks like we didn’t get here a minute too soon,” Sadira said. “Let’s go.”

  “If you say so,” Magnus said, his voice still quivering from the exhaustion of the two-day run Sadira had just pushed them through. “But it would be better if we could take a few minutes to rest—”

  “I doubt we have even a few seconds,” Sadira countered. As they started down the slope, she was surprised to notice Sacha and Wyan floating along behind Magnus. “I hadn’t thought you two would be so brave,” she commented.

  “When the cause serves us, we can be courageous enough,” answered Sacha.

  Down at the gate tower, Lyanius’s ancient voice said something defiant. Unfortunately, even with the aid of her magic, the sorceress could not quite make out the words of the trembling voice. In a motion so fast she barely saw it, Borys plucked the old man from the wall and held him aloft. Lyanius screamed in anger and struggled to free himself, his fists beating against the huge finger wrapped around his chest.

  The dwarven sergeant raised his arm, but he did not dare signal his warriors to loose their bolts. Even if they killed the Dragon with their first volley, the long drop to the ground would kill the uhrnomus. Sadira stopped. She was still too far away to use any of her combat spells, but she might be able to utter an incantation that would cushion Lyanius’s fall.

  “The book!” bellowed the Dragon.

  Lyanius stopped struggling and stared down into Bory’s nearest eye, trembling in fright.

  “Why doesn’t Borys just go in and take it? asked Magnus. “He must be powerful enough.”

  “Easily,” answered Sadira. “But he’d have to use his magic, and he needs to save all his energy for another task more important to him.”

  “What?” the windsinger asked.

  “To keep something locked way,” she answered, pointing the tip of a red-glowing finger at Lyanius.

  “You know about that?” gasped Wyan. “And you still want to deny Borys his levy?”

  “Khidar and his people did not seem so terrible to me,” she answered.r />
  Lyanius stopped struggling, then looked back down to the Dragon. “No!” he yelled.

  Borys’s fist closed and the uhrnomus’s body disappeared into a spray of blood. On the village wall, the sergeant lowered his hand. The dwarven crossbows clattered, launching a hundred steel bolts at the Dragon’s chest. They struck with a hollow rattle, then fell away in an ineffectual rain of metal.

  Sadira rushed down the hill, moving so fast that she left Magnus and the two heads far behind. As she ran, Borys raised one leg and stepped over the wall. Rikus lifted his sword and turned to face the Dragon, but did not move forward to attack. Instead, he suddenly lowered the blade and dropped to his stomach. Before his belly hit the roof, dozens of spells flashed from the hands of the sorcerers outside the gate. In the next instant, the air was filled with lightning bolts, streams of fire, sparkling projectiles, and more kinds of deadly magic than Sadira had ever before seen in one place.

  Borys disappeared into a dazzling explosion of magical energy. Even so far from the fight, Sadira felt the ground trembling beneath her feet, and the wind was filled with the caustic stench of incendiary spells.

  When the storm died away, Borys still straddled the wall. Wisps of smoke—black, gray, red, and many other colors—were rising off his mottled hide. Other than that, he showed no sign of having been injured.

  Sadira continued to sprint forward, astonished by the speed with which fighting had broken out. Barely two seconds had passed since Borys had killed Lyanius, and already the defenders were fully engaged in combat. She considered the possibility of pausing long enough to cast a spell that would take her closer, but decided against doing so. At the rate things were going, by the time she stopped, uttered the incantation, and reoriented herself when she arrived, this battle might as well have taken a drastic turn in a different direction.

  The Dragon turned his head toward the group of sorcerers that had just attacked him. He opened his great beaklike mouth, then Sadira heard the swish of a prolonged intake of air. Agis dived away, yelling, “Take cover!”

  With a deafening roar, a cone of white-hot sand blasted from Borys’s mouth. He moved his head slowly from side to side, working his way down the entire hillside. As his gritty breath ignited purple spikeballs and scraped fans of goldentip from the hillside, horrid cries of agony and despair filled Sadira’s ears. Men and women disintegrated into columns of greasy smoke, or had the flesh scoured from their bones by the sandy torrent.

  Just as Sadira was beginning to fear the stream would consume Agis, Rikus rushed to the edge of the gate tower. With a bellow of rage, he swung his sword at Borys’s stomach. The blade struck with a mighty clang, spraying blue sparks in all directions. As it sliced across the Dragon’s midriff, red smoke and yellow-glowing blood spilled from the wound.

  Borys closed his mouth, cutting off the terrible stream of hot sand, and glared down at his attacker. Wherever the Dragon’s fiery blood fell, stones shattered and bricks dissolved into powder.

  Within attacking range at last, Sadira stopped to collect the energy for a spell.

  Rikus swung again, but Borys easily stepped away, then countered by slashing at the mul with four long claws. As the blow landed, there was an ear-piercing screech and a brilliant blue flash. When the light died away, Rikus was no longer standing atop the tower.

  “No!” Sadira screamed.

  She was about to cast her spell when the Dragon opened his mouth and hissed in anger. His long tongue darted from his beak and licked the top of the tower for a moment, then he paused to look over the hills surrounding the village. Whatever had happened, it had apparently not been his doing.

  Then Sadira saw the mul standing beneath the gate arch, where the Dragon could not see him, looking dazed and confused. Remembering that Khidar had told her no champion could strike the bearer of a weapon forged by Rajaat, the sorceress decided it would be wisest to hold her attacks until she and Rikus could join forces.

  Instead, keeping an eye on both the Dragon and the mul, she went to Agis’s side. What she found made her gasp in alarm. The noble lay on the rocky ground, unconscious and barely breathing. Although he had escaped being hit by Borys’s searing breath, an indirect blast of the fiery sand had burned his robe away and scoured the skin off much of his face. The sorceress laid her hands on his chest, then allowed some of the energy infusing her body to flow into his. With luck, this would keep him alive for a little longer, but her powers did not make her a healer. For that, she needed Magnus.

  Sadira rose and glanced back toward the gate. Borys had stepped completely into the village now. Dwarven warriors were swarming around his feet, ineffectually hacking at his ankles with their steel battle-axes. Paying then no more attention than Magnus would have a swarm of mosquitoes, the Dragon paused long enough to run a finger along the wound that Rikus had opened. The edges of the cut fused together, stanching the flow of yellow blood.

  That done, he turned and marched through the village toward the sound of Neeva’s birthing screams. The dwarven warriors followed, but succeeded only in getting themselves crushed along with whatever else happened to lie beneath the Dragon’s footfalls. Seeing this, Rikus began to recover from his shock and turned to follow the battle.

  Magnus’s heavy footsteps finally came up behind the sorceress. Hardly turning around to address the windsinger, she pointed at Agis’s inert form. “Don’t let him die!”

  “I’ll do what I can,” the windsinger replied, panting heavily. “Who is he?”

  “One of my husbands,” Sadira answered.

  With that, she rushed toward the gate, followed by Sacha and Wyan. She caught up to Rikus just as he started to rush down the lane after Borys and the dwarves. “Rikus, wait!” she called. “You need help!”

  The mul stopped and looked back. When his eyes fell on Sadira, his square jaw slackened. “What happened to you?” he gasped.

  The sorceress reached over and pushed his jaw back up. “Never mind,” she said. “The important thing is that I made it to the Pristine Tower and found out how to save Tyr—and Kled. Whatever you do, don’t let go of the Scourge of Rkard. Together, I think we can stop the Dragon—”

  “You mean kill him!” Sacha hissed.

  Rikus glanced over the sorceress’s shoulder and frowned. “What are those two doing here?” he growled. “Don’t tell me they’re with you?”

  “They’re the ones who told me to come here,” Sadira admitted.

  “I still don’t think we can trust ’em,” the mul growled.

  “Don’t think,” hissed Wyan. “That’s not what your kind is bred for.”

  Rikus raised his sword to strike at the head, but Sadira caught his arm. “At the moment, we’ve got more important things to fight,” she said. “Especially if Borys is going where I think he is.”

  With that, she led the way after the Dragon. It did not take much effort to track him. Even if his body hadn’t towered far above Kled’s small huts, the swath of devastation created by his passing would have made it an easy task.

  When they caught up to him, the Dragon was kneeling next to a hut, his arms resting on the top of its walls and his head peering down inside. From the inside came the pained groans of Neeva’s labor, and no other sounds.

  The entire company of dwarves was gathered around the Dragon, swinging their axes at his great body as though it were a tree. Occasionally, Borys flicked his tongue into the hut, then said, “Come now, tell me where you have hidden this Er’Stali and his book. If you force me to use the Way, I promise your child will die with the rest of the village.”

  From inside the hut, Neeva’s pained voice screamed, “No!”

  Sadira took one last look around, noting that Sacha and Wyan had finally yielded to their cowardly instincts and disappeared. When she saw no reason to postpone the attack, she pointed her hand at the Dragon’s head, then whispered, “Now, Rikus!”

  When she spoke her incantation, a streak of crimson light shot from her finger and engulfed Borys’s
head in a ball of radiance almost as bright as the sun itself. He bellowed in surprise and jumped to his feet, then Rikus was on him, furiously hacking and slashing at the Dragon’s legs. Wound after wound opened, spattering the mul with hot yellow blood and filling the streets with tunnels of liquid fire. Although the heat drove the dwarves away, Rikus ignored the pain it caused him and continued to lash out at Borys.

  Before preparing to cast another spell, Sadira stepped over to the hut and peered over the side. She caught a glimpse of Neeva’s naked figure squatting on a bed of soft hides, her hand clenching Caelum’s shoulders for support.

  “Caelum, take her and run!” Sadira hissed.

  “But the child is com—”

  “Carry her, now!” the sorceress yelled, stepping away. As she looked back to the battle, Sadira saw the Dragon reach up and grab her sphere of light as though it were a mask, then rip it away. Instantly, she cast her next spell, firing a streak of darkness at his head. This time, Borys was ready for her and deflected the attack with a flick of his wrist. The bolt struck a hut and swaddled it in blackness. It drained into the ground, leaving nothing behind except a shadow.

  Once more, Sadira raised her hand toward the sun. Rikus continued to press the attack, leaping across small stream of boiling stone to thrust his blade toward Borys’s abdomen. The Dragon, much better at defending himself now that he could see, slapped the flat of the blade aside.

  “I believe that sword belongs to me,” he said, gesturing at the Scourge of Rkard with one long finger.

  “It’s mine now,” Rikus replied. He swung again, lopping off the end of the Dragon’s finger.

  A stream of blood shot from the wound and sprayed over Rikus’s chest. The mul screamed and stumbled away, barely managing to keep his hand on his sword. Screaming in rage, Borys slashed at his attacker. Again, there was an ear-piercing shriek and a brilliant flash of blue, then Rikus was nowhere to be seen.